This article is published in issue 6 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until February 9, 2021.
“Night is the best thing that can happen in the day. The night is more colorful », writes Vincent van Gogh. Come on: in the night we spend half of our lives. And it is the most beautiful half indeed. Because the night is like rubber, it is of infinite elasticity and softness, while the morning is sharp like a guillotine. It is at night that the hum of the soul, the din of the world, are best perceived.
It is at night that the change in social mores is essential. It is the night that best tells what is happening in our life, more than any sociological essay. Night is night, and the pandemic has wiped it out by turning us all into Netflix and Amazon Prime suckers while the daytime world brings the glitter. If possible, it’s awful. When it’s good, row against. A valley of prohibitions that the government colors one day red, if all goes well with orange, maybe turns yellow. Instead, the night can do everything, even transforming Coca into Pepsi, Barbara D’Urso into an actress, Giuseppe Conte into a premier.
The most direct sign of the change in lifestyles, one’s desire to enjoy life, the desire for pleasure and new pleasures, from the table to the journey, by imposing new rules of being together, has always arrived at nightfall. Now, at 10pm the cleaver falls on life. Without the night we have nothing to tell, for a year our life has been interrupted and suddenly everything that, just a year ago seemed so horrible, so unmade, so vulgar, so ultracafonal, today we would pay to have it back in front of our eyes . Covid has dehumanized us, entangled us, flattened us, made us ruthless and desperate, for sale on the market, cut off from the life we would like to have back: the whoring of undersecretaries, escorts, princes, old men, hustlers, party leaders, mafia bosses, great lord, notaries, oilmen, stripteaseuses, excellent wives, cardinals, dogs, tailors, models! All together, millionaires and destitute people who have been posted, famous and unknown who feel known, from the Right, from the Left, from the Center, of everything, all apolitical, all brothers! The worst of the worst, of desperate and unwatchable people who were never ashamed of wearing minidresses at eighty, of having a bumper put on instead of their mouth, of stuffing canapes down their throats like a pill, of opening their jacket on immoderate tits, always having fun, vip among vip! Do you remember the manifesto of Berlusconi’s Edonism? “Losers don’t exist. There are only those who are uneducated to well-being. Bunga Bunga is back, all is forgiven!
The memory of that relentless and desperate peasant world, while we watch dumb series and talks, now comes back to our minds from nightmare to dream, like a Mobile Party from animal beating, an open-air bordello, and don’t push, there is a disco for everyone.
Because the night brings with it not only trash & flash, chatters and charlatans, clones and balls, but also knows how to mix technology with play, political power with seduction, sex with pleasure, fun with life. Seduced by a zero ideology that prefers the image to the thing, the representation to reality, even if in forms masked by unbridled kitsch. Like Alpine veterans and fighters, those nights that appeared to us as the degradation of the West, today, spliced by the virus, are transfigured into an imaginary Belle Époque.
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Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
